


the white lady

by kalypsobean



Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/F, Rebirth, Valinor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-23
Updated: 2015-04-23
Packaged: 2018-03-25 11:22:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3808501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kalypsobean/pseuds/kalypsobean
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Aredhel first meets Galadriel when they are learning how to cope with death. Then, they cheat it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the white lady

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Elleth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elleth/gifts).



Aredhel cannot bear to be touched, not even by the wind, sharp and biting as it throws ice into the air. She pulls her cloak tight, though it was woven in Valinor for walking amidst light-filled forests and offers no protection from the chill. It seeps inside her like a poison taking root in her bones, draining the warmth from her skin. If not for her hair, hiding her tears under a dark hood, she would be as white as the snow around her, invisible.

She did not take to the ships; she could not stay among the doomed, and could not remain with the dead. They lay as if sleeping and would never wake, and haunted her steps as their fëar fled to a haven beyond the physical realm.

 

The host of Finarfin's house come upon her as if from the ice itself, a ragged line that appears on the edge of her far-vision and thins as the narrow ice claims the weakest for its own. She makes herself small; hides between jagged bergs as they stumble past, unsure of what her cousins know. Their blame and anger, their pain; she could not stand it directed towards herself, as if she did not stand against her uncle and still found herself helpless against the vast wanton destruction of the harbour and all who called part of it their own.

 

"There is no use in dwelling in the past," a deep, silvery voice says in her mind. "We must move on, or become slaves to our own selves, as Fëanor and his sons." 

A warm cloak, spun from cotton and thickly woven, appears in front of her. It hangs in the air, and just when she reaches out to touch it, it winds through the air and lands on her shoulders, draping over her arms. Another Elf holds the end, and adjusts it just so, then lifts the hood over Aredhel's head, blocking the ice from stinging her eyes and allowing her sight to clear.

"There was nothing you could have done, cousin,"

For a moment, she lets herself believe, be led, but the Helcaraxë is unforgiving.

 

~*~

 

Galadriel comes to Nevrast on a summer's night, while they're still learning how to live with the seasons on land that asks them to fight just for what they need. She is also out of place as she walks among walls of rock and wood, not yet refined; instead, they walk outside the city, through trees that have not yet been sacrificed.

Aredhel enjoys this time, though it is brief, to become a fleeting memory amid a thousand others. For all that Galadriel wields the old magic, she understands; she is still in love with simple things and the fantasy inherent in open, wild spaces. In Galadriel's mind there is a city among the trees, growing between the branches instead of made from their bones. Perhaps it is somewhere Aredhel could live, without this feeling, this heaviness, but it is far in the future, and perhaps, if the Valar willed them on different paths, it could have been. But the stones trap her fëa in the dark; the forests are dense, the sunlight pale and flat.

The hours balm her soul, keep the restlessness at bay after Galadriel leaves. Turgon promises her safety, but she looks back as they ride, as if expecting to be called back.

 

~*~

 

"This will be the last time I see you, cousin," Galadriel says. The plains of Himlad are bordered by forests dark and inscrutable. "You will be lost to me."

"I will be reborn, one day," Aredhel says. "I will wait for you, for when you return to the West."

Galadriel's eyes turn to shadow, and her light dims. "That path is not open to me, or to you."

But Aredhel is certain; it is a whisper on the air, a nudge in the back of her mind, a calmness in her far-sight that fills her chest with cool, still, certainty. 

It is what she clings to, when she follows the dark path laid out for her, and when she goes to the Halls alone, following so many of her kin, it is what shows her fëa how to turn from the shadows.

 

~*~

 

The Undying Lands are not the same as the place she left; the ones who stayed look down on the ones who returned, no matter the manner of their journey. Aredhel no longer minds their expectations of her, for her time with Mandos served her well. Her part in Vairë's tapestry was clear to her even as she felt them twisting as they guided her, though seeing her threads weaved in intricate patterns with those of her family was disconcerting. Though it would not be apparent to those still entangled in the mires of Arda, knowing that she had been placed to bring hope was of comfort, though the future had not yet been fully woven and she could not sense how. So, too, was seeing Galadriel's city, her dream; it was indeed a place where she could have felt free, as part of nature.

"What will you do, if you are reborn?" Mandos had asked her, when she first entered. Vairë had been weaving, and her hands stilled on the loom as if, for once, Aredhel had a choice.

"I will build her vision, and tend her garden, until her work is done," she had said. "Until she can come home."

Mandos had said nothing, but allowed her to leave when the time came that the chill had left her and her dreams were free of the screams of the dying and the crash of waves.

 

She starts with a malinornë tree, asking its branches to grow wide and flat, and for its fruit to sustain her. When she is finished, she has built a city; the trees are alive and whisper to her of the Elves who come to live in their branches. She knows them all, and yet, she is not one of them; they come from the other side of the Sea and know no other way. They look up to her as their Lady and tell stories of another, just as loved but just as remote; Aredhel knows hope from their words.

 

~*~

 

Galadriel comes alone, as if shedding the stain of war from her aura as she walks under the trees. Aredhel knows how it feels to walk in these woods, with the grass and twigs soft on bare skin and the sunlight casting patterned beams through the leaves, almost dancing if one would look long enough to see.

Aredhel leaps from branch to branch until she has the ground under her feet. She wraps a silk-spun cloak around Galadriel's shoulders to keep her fair skin from burning under the light. Galadriel takes her hand, and stops her letting go; Aredhel smiles and puts her chin on Galadriel's shoulder, pressing their bodies together. 

"Welcome home," she says.


End file.
